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Originally my common suggestions and advice for iRacing rookies; now a lot more.
Help me help others... Please advise if the information requires updating.

iRacing's new MX5: 2016 Season 2 (March 2016); it's free to all members.
iRacing reportedly served as a useful tool in the development of the new Global Mazda MX-5 Cup car.

Quoted from thread 2016 MX-5:Q: Does anyone know what the 321 456 LEDs beside the REV LEDs mean?
A: They are warning lights. Light 3 is for fuel state. It will be green above 25% fuel, yellow from 25 to 15%, and red from 14% to 0.
1 is oil pressure, 6 is water temp. The other lamps besides 3 aren't used.

iRacing hardware requirementshttp://www.iracing.com/membership/system-requirements/
I strongly suggest using a (ffb - force feedback) wheel and pedals, not the likes of gamepads and joysticks.
(How to be competitive without a wheel - Tutorial posted by a member).
Some accomplished iRacing members (past and present) use relatively cheap Logitech wheels (eg DFGT, G25, G27).
I still use a Logitech G27; no mods except a Bodnar USB cable (higher resolution) for the pedals.
My computer: i5 750@ 2.67GHz, 12gb ram, GeForce GTX760 2gb, 3x Asus VE247H, Windows 7 x64.
(I upgraded from: i3 530@ 2.93GHz with Geforce GTS250 on single monitor).
More about my 3 monitor configuration: 3monitors.
iRacing's forum section for HARDWARE can be very helpful. (Also check the rest of the forum).

Borderless Window Support from 2015s4 release notes.
The sim can now be run in windowed mode without a border or title bar.
There is a new option on the auto-config dialog and a new graphics option to disable the border.
Like the full screen toggle in options, the border configuration does not take effect until the sim is restarted.

Highly recommended watch "Surviving Rookies" on Youtube
Includes very good advice relevant to Road racing; the tutorials are based on Oval racing.
Surviving Rookies links: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Rookie race tip: sit back and let the smash fest happen ahead of you or qualify ahead of the pack.
If in front, excessive braking not only slows you down, you'll probably get rear-ended.
Too many drivers try to win the race lap 1, turn 1.
1st race suggestion: aim to finish not to win and remember to breathe

The iRacing forum is loaded with guys claiming their wreck(s) were unavoidable.
If you are regularly involved in a wreck it's probably time to accept some responsibility.
Look further ahead, drive to conditions, learn car control. Watch the youtube links above.

iRacing's new content schedule works on an unofficial iRacing clock - "Soon".
Members citing "Soon" normally mean some time in the future (days/months/years), not imminently.
Reference to Soon™ is sarcastically attributed to iRacing, I don't know when/who started it.
Not related, note that many members may reference / use pink (violet) text in a post to indicate sarcasm.
The image below is used on the forum a lot, original source unknown.

iRacing's how to videos and more - youtube.
I also suggest watching clips from safeisfast.com, including:
- "Understeer vs Oversteer: Part 1- What's the Difference? Which is Faster?"
- "Understeer vs Oversteer: Part 2 - Mistaking One For The Other"

Off-track (1x) defined: Draw an X linking all 4 tyres, and that's
the centerpoint that can't cross over any
dirt/grass/astroturf/grasscrete/etc. without getting a 1x.

Towing from 2015s4 release notes.
When someone is disconnected from the server via a connection failure, we now compute the tow from when we last saw them on track, instead of when the connection finally timed out.

Blocking, youtube.
Sporting Code "7.1.1.4. Blocking - The defending driver is allowed to
run a defensive line through a corner and onto the straight.
For iRacing, blocking is a deviation by a driver from defending position based on the action of the pursuing driver.
Please see the video example at the following link (above)".
An interesting forum thread "Who owns the corner".SafeIsFast.com offers various clips including Advanced Driving Techniques: Defending Your Position Vs Blocking.
Also read Blue Flag....

Blue Flag.
"6.5. Blue Flag (blue with diagonal yellow stripe) – Indicates faster cars are approaching.
This flag is informational only.
In all cases, it is the responsibility of the faster car to safely overtake the slower car.
It is the responsibility of the slower car to maintain a consistent line.
It is strongly recommended that a slower car being lapped makes every reasonable effort to facilitate a safe pass."
See Blocking in previous point.The above rule and various member interpretations are often debated on the forum.
I'd prefer the rule be reworded to remove any ambiguity.
My simplistic suggestions to assist a clean pass:
* Be predictable in your actions.
* If moving off your normal line, do it early to clearly indicate intention.
* Don't make an erratic move - the rear driver doesn't have a crystal ball to predict it.
* A slight lift on the gas may be sufficient to enable a safe pass on a straight.
* Don't expect drivers to read text "pass left" "pass right" or know who it's intended for.

6.2. White Flag – When displayed at start/finish line, indicates the start of the last lap and will be displayed to the leader first and then to the remainder of the Competitors.

6.3. Checkered Flag – Indicates the end of a session, warm-up period, or end of the race.

6.4. Yellow Flag – When displayed motionlessly (Standing Yellow), indicates danger, no passing, be prepared to slow down.
When displayed with motion (Waving Yellow), indicates extreme danger, no passing, be prepared to slow down, track may be partially or completely blocked.
In either case, Competitors may not pass until the Yellow flag is removed, as indicated by the absence of the Yellow flag and/or presence of the Green flag at the next corner station.

6.6. Black Flag (furled) – When displayed furled, indicates a warning from Race Control and may require action, such as slowing on course, to avoid an in-session penalty.

6.8. Failure to comply with any Flag Signal may result in a Black Flag Penalty being assessed by Race Control.

Black Flag Rules include:
6.8.1.2. Stop-and-Go – requires the penalized driver to return to his/her pit box and come to a complete stop inside the box before rejoining the race.
6.8.1.3. Stop-and-Hold – requires the penalized driver to return to his/her pit box and come to a complete stop inside the box. Race Control will then hold the driver for a specific duration of time before releasing him/her to rejoin the race.
6.8.1.4. Disqualification -- Upon disqualification, a driver will have 30 seconds to
pull off of the racing line and exit the session, after which Race Control will
automatically remove the disqualified driver. Race Control will immediately
remove from the session any driver disqualified for driving the wrong way on
the track.
6.8.1.5 (Excerpt: official lap times will be be recorded until the driver has served his/her penalty).
6.8.1.6 (You may not use reset to return to pits to serve a Black Flag).
6.8.1.7 Failure to return to the pits and serve a black flag penalty within 4 laps of
notification from Race Control will result in disqualification.

The Sporting Code also makes specific reference to Oval and Road. Read the Sporting Code linked on Members' site.

From 2015s4 release notes:
Add an app.ini setting [Replay] maxFramesToSearchPerUpdate=2048 setting to control how much tape is searched per update during a long search.

GHOST RACE AND SPECTATE.

How to GHOST race & spectate - Youtube clip.
Note: The link "Watch/Ghost/Crew/Spot" is now located on the Members' Page under "Find Official Races" tab.

The above is different from "reflap car" or "reference car" introduced 2013s3.
Reflap .olap and .blap files are Opt and Best laps that can be shared.

2015s3 UPDATE: Reflap (ghost) car / split times. Source: iRacing release notes.
It's now possible to load a user provided lap file into the split time manager that you can drive against.
This file will not be over written when you improve your lap times so it can provide a constant reference.
You can load files provided by other members in order to race against them.
This file will drive both the delta bar/split time indicators and the ghost car.
Optionally you can load reference files for different cars than your own,
for example in a GT3 session if you want to pace yourself against an alternate car type,
however the car body on the ghost car will always look like your own car and will not change to match the car type you are racing against.
To share lap files with other members, share the files found in documents/iRacing/lapfiles/ with each other.
Each file is tagged with your customer id so there is no harm in copying other players files into your directory.
Then in the settings tab you can load a custom lap file up for this car.
- Brake lights now function on the ghost car
- You can now offset the ghost car up to 2 seconds in front of you by editing app.ini [SplitsDeltas] ghostCarOffsetSec=0.0

File location %userprofile%/documents/iRacing/lapfiles/<track>/<car>

Reflap Car extract from 2013s3 release notes (all):
Extract 2013s3 release notes.
Reflap Car
- The Splits/Delta system has been expanded to be able to show a transparent car representing your currently selected reference lap. We call this a Reflap Car.
- By default the Tab key cycles through the SPLIT TIMER modes, including Off.
The key can be remapped in Options.
There are 9 reference displays to toggle through that I've seen:
* Off
* vs All-time Best Lap - Your fastest lap ever recorded
* vs All-time Optimal Sector - your fastest sectors even if they were not part of the same lap
* vs Comparison Lap
* vs Comparison Sector
* vs Session Best Lap - best lap this session
* vs Session Optimal
* vs Session Optimal Sector
* vs Session Last Lap - the last lap you drove
- The Splits/Deltas function in all modes, but the Reflap car is only viewable in Testing or Time-trial events.
- The UI will hide itself as you enter the grid to start a race, but tapping the Tab key will make the UI visible again.
- The transparency of the Reflap car is adjustable via an app.ini setting:
[Graphics]
reflapCarTransp=0.350000 ; Set level of transparency for reference lap car.
- There is a hotkey to toggle the display of the ReflapCar, the default keypress is ctrl-c.
- There is a Reflap car button in the delta time window, that if clicked toggles the Reflap car.
- NOTE RE SPLIT TIMER
An "*" next to a time indicates you had an off-track or worse, they are referred to as incidents.
A purple coloured time indicates it was your fastest without incident.
Incident count discussed further down.

SPECTATING iRacing LIVE VIEW

PREDICTIVE CAR PLACEMENT

Forum post by Randy C (iRacing staff):
"What you see in realtime and what you see in the replay will be different.
At any given time in your world while you're driving, we only know where
any of the other cars around you were at some set of different times in
the past (depending on your latency plus their latency). We can't just
put their cars at those "old" positions - we have to guess where their
cars would be at your time so that we can position them on the track
around you.
With the replay, we have the luxury of not having to guess where the
other cars were at any time X in your "world." We can just wait for
their position at time X (or a time very close to X) to arrive, and
store that position. So the replay shows you a much closer
representation of what was actually going on at the time."

CARS MAGICALLY REPAIRED WHILE DRIVING EXPLAINED

Forum post
by Randy C (iRacing staff): "It's a side-effect of not being able to
immediately transmit every possible piece of information about the state
of the world to everyone in the session. When your computer sees that
someone else's car is involved in an accident, it guesses what kind of
damage the car sustained. Their car will continue along on your computer
with whatever damage you guessed they have. Periodically everyone sends
the server the actual current damage state for their own car, and
periodically the server will forward that state on to everyone else.
When your computer receives the latest "authoritative" damage state from
the server for someone else's car, it will "magically fix itself" to
reflect the actual condition of the car".

NETCODE / CAR CONTACT / SMASHES: before reacting, check replay.

Be aware iRacing has non-contact smashes; 'ghost contact' otherwise known as 'netcode' or 'lag'.
The cars may be no where near each other when they smash, random example youtube.
See more with a random search on youtube.

It wasn't flatulence that blew him away.
Check your 'Ping' on the member page.
WiFi can be problematic.
Hard-wire your computer to modem/router.
In session check the driver entries list for pings.
Race when more people in your timezone race.
HIGH PINGS - LEAVE MORE ROOM AROUND YOU.

Source: release notes 2015s4:
"The way in which we maintain the count of the number of sessions that apply towards the Minimum Participation Requirements (MPR) for promotion has been updated. The visibile differences are:

- The count of completed sessions now updates at around the same time as your SR and iRating. Generally this is as soon as the session finishes. Note that this is when the session finishes, not when you leave the session. For example, Time Trial sessions generally run for 30 minutes. If you finish your laps and leave 10 minutes into the session, it might not be counted until around 20 minutes later, when the entire session finishes.

- Sessions in long-running Series that do not follow the regular 12-week Season schedule will now be counted towards MPR. Previously, only sessions run in the first Season in which the long-running Series was run were counted.

- The MPR counts are only reset to zero when you get promoted. If for whatever reason you have not met the qualifications for promotion by the end of a Season, the sessions counted towards MPR will now carry forwards to the next season. Previously, the counts would be reset at the end of Week 13, and you'd have to complete the entire MPR all over again in the new season".

INCIDENT COUNT & CPI

Incident count - source Sporting Code
0x Light contact with another driver
1x Wheels off the racing surface
2x Loss of control
2x Contact with other objects
4x Heavy contact with another driver

Minimum driver count. "5.2.1. In order for a race to be official it must have a minimum of 6 drivers for Rookie races and 8 Drivers for Class D through Class A. The maximum number drivers will be determined by the FIRST Competition Board in order to ensure safe andcompetitive racing within each License Class". I can't find a current source other than a generic section in the Sporting Code. I did check the iRacing FAQ but the answer I found linked to an old Sporting Code... asking iRacing support is an option.

CPI (Corners per incident) - source Beginners Guide
Eg. "A" class driver needs to maintain 1.8 incidents on average per 140 corners, to stay a rookie it's easier at 9.3 (but not desirable).
For a detailed explanation, read iRacing's Beginners Guide.
Also discussed in forum thread "Introduction to the SR System" (SR is Safety Rating).
Another forum thread "Safety Rating vs License".
iRating explained by Randy C in thread, read his following posts too.
From the iRacing glossary: "driver's Safety Rating is derived from their Corners Per incident (CPI) average. Each track has a set number of corners. For example Lime Rock Park has seven corners. If you get one incident point every lap, your CPI would be seven. If you drove 100 laps, with only one incident, your CPI would be 700".

From 2016s3 release notes:
Incident Points
- The Info tab on the Session screen will now show your incident point count for the current session. In a team event, it will also show the count for your team as a whole.
- The Entries tab now has a new "INCS" column. In a live session, you will see the incident point counts for the current session. There is no way to "back up" and see the incident point counts for prior sessions. In race sessions, everyone is only able to see their own team's incident point counts. However, in a non-race session, or once a race session is complete, everyone is able to see the incident point counts for everyone. Admins are also able to see the incident point counts for everyone during a race session.
- When watching a replay, you will see the incident point counts for the session replay you are currently watching. The same session visibility restrictions apply to watching replays (so you can not circumvent the restriction during an event by having a teammate save the replay, and load it to see everyone's incident point counts).

Most keyboard shortcuts can be remapped in the options window.
There are many more assigned buttons than I'll mention here.

Commonly used default keys:

F3 key: displays 'Relative' screen.
Check the relative screen before exiting pits or getting back on track.
The UP and DOWN arrows on keyboard (default mapping) will scroll up and down in F3 list.F3 colour key:
White: same lap as you
Red: cars that have lapped you
Blue: cars you have lapped
Yellow: you
Gray: a dimmed white in pit.
2015s4: In the F3 black box, sort cars into position based on class, if no position is currently known for the car.

TAB key: split timer. Push the TAB key to cycle through different timer options including OFF.
The split timer can be deceptive and ultimately slow you down by chasing unrealistic times.
Eg. if you consistently overdrive a corner, it may prevent you from achieving a better run into the next corner.
To reset your SPLITS, exit pits (hold ESC key), click SPLITS bottom right corner of screen.
2 options in SPLITS, Overall and Session.
Select the 'Lap' row in the column you want to reset then click 'CLEAR'.

F key: displays frame rate
LQSPFPDF of FAQ FPS black box: (L)atency (Q)uality (S)kew (P)age fault. (F)orce feedback.
You can also enable CPUMeter=0 in app.ini which displays as C. Information from post:
The CPU meter measures only the CPU usage of the simulation's real-time thread (the one that runs the simulation, basically).
Gray is the 1-second trailing average CPU usage.
Purple is the 15-second trailing average CPU usage (only visible if it's higher than the gray bar).
R is for rendering thread CPU time
G is for GPU rendering timeFrom 2016s1 release notes:
Two additional bars have been added to the "Comm" UI when “CPUMeter=1” is enabled in "app.ini" file.
There is now an "R" bar which is the time the foreground/Renderer took and a "G" bar which is the time the GPU took.
There is also a new option in the "app.ini" file named
“CPUMeterAsText=1” which will turn all the "CPU" timing related meters
into text that reports the times in milliseconds.
From post: The bar is calibrated to be 60fps. If it doesn't turn red you are getting 60fps or better.
The units are in milliseconds. Which means anything less than 16.6ms will be 60fps or better from the GPU's view.From 2016s4 release notes:
The Q-Bar on the frame rate/connection status meter area now has two side-by-side meters.
The original value is in the left-hand bar, and shows the amount of packet loss from the race server to the simulation.
The new right-hand bar (which grows from right to left) shows the amount of packet loss from the simulation to the race server.
Note
that the data for this right-hand bar is sent from the server to the
simulation, so if there is a sudden loss of all packets sent by the
server to the simulation, the value in this bar will not update.
As before, each bar becomes full at 50% packet loss, though each is now about half the width of the original Q meter.

P key: pedal inputs display

[ or ] key. [ or ] key and Shift key: adjusts FOV (field of view).
See my FOV page for more information.
Incorrect FOV setting will distort your view / perspective potentially slowing you down and/or help crash.
My preferred FOV isn't always technically "correct" - I question the relevance of an individual's vision.
For more immersion, see TWEAKS on home page.

Ctrl+PageUP and Ctrl+PageDown keys: scales user interface (black box) while in-car.
Can also be set in the Options - Graphics tab. See shupop's youtube clip.

F10: radio black box for (voice comms) radio channels added 2015s1. See iRacing-Radio.

New (2015s3 ?) context menu added to driver's name while talking - see iRacing-Radio.

F4 includes option for fast repair (2015s2 release notes). Some answers in thread. (Another thread calls it quick repair).
Fast Repair: also see iRacing-Macros.
From 2016 s2 patch 1 release notes: A new setting, "[Pit Service] autoResetFastRepair=1" has been added to the "app.ini" file.
This setting separates resetting the fast repair Black Box checkbox from the existing setting "[Pit Service] autoResetPitBox=1" in the "app.ini" file.

F9 includes setting for virtual mirror field of view (2015s4).

From 2016 s2 patch 1 release notes: Black Boxes. Setup changes that are applied during a pit stop (like tire pressures) are no longer kept when the Sim advances from one session to another.
Immediate in-cockpit adjustments (like brake bias or traction control setting) are still kept across a session transition.

2016s4 release notes: - With the Virtual Mirror option enabled, a hotkey (Alt+M) has been added to show/hide the virtual mirror while driving.

When calibrating the wheel in iRacing's sim:
1. Turn wheel all the way left, then all the way right. Sets min & max rotation.
2. Turn wheel to centre to set centre position.
3. Turn 90 degrees left (counter clockwise / 9 o'clock). Sets direction and degrees.
* Do any step wrong and your wheel won't calibrate accurately.
Logitech G27 will calibrate to less than 900 degrees.
* If having problems, (copy then remove) controls.cfg and joyCalib.yaml Documents|iRacing folder.
You then have a clean slate to start calibration again.

SOUND OPTIONS in iRacing SIM

Increase tyre sound in options. options-screenshot.
It's one of the best tools available while improving your driving skills.
Some tyre noise is typical. Excessive tyre noise indicates bad driving.

Enable Spotter. Essential with limited view on 1 monitor.
Eg. the virtual 'spotter' will say when a car is next to you in a blind spot.
I prefer to use
Jimmie Johnson Spotter from dwarehouse.com.
The iRacing forum thread: JJ spotter packs.

Enable Voice Chat to hear what driver's are saying.
A mic is not necessary to listen.
Many people don't realise the down arrow next to 'Playback' is a drop down box.
While there, also assign your preferred keys for MUTE etc.
See more about Voice and Text messages on my page: iRacing-Radio.

Driving Line is useful while learning a new track but not good to use.
The virtual line isn't perfect nor would I rely on it.
After a few laps turn it off and see if you remember where the blind bends are.
Most seasoned iRacers will disagree with using it at all.
Member Steve C's post may interest you.
Excerpt of post by David T, iRacing staff (2011):
"The line is showing you acceleration and deceleration, not gas/brake points. They translate to about the same thing but not at the transition. A lift of your throttle will start you decelerating, so you kinda have to figure out how to read the line. Basically when you can not see green any more, you need to be off throttle and thinking about slowing down. Light pink is already into the brakes. Also this is a theoretical line based on someone elses driving, so the markers are perfect for them, but may be way off for you depending on how much faster/slower you are then they were. I went out of my way to make these aids not that usefull if you have any talent at all. They are very usefull if you lack talent, or if you try to drive the dalara with a game pad. Of course the rookies can't do that, so... I did write these aids to help myself, I am more consistent with them on, but I am on the bottom end of the talent pool!"

Brake Assistance. I've never used it. I believe it will only hamper your progress.
Also be aware you won't be able to use it when your ranking advances.

Throttle Assistance. I've never used it, know nothing about it.

Shift Aid. Selecting 'None' provides the most realistic experience.If you don't have a clutch, you could assign a clutch button.
To assign a clutch button, when calibrating pedals, push a key/button instead of a clutch.
If you don't want a clutch at all...
In sim options select 'Auto Clutch' or 'Auto Blip'. Auto Blip is an auto clutch plus throttle blip.
Both can potentially be slower than a good shift with a manual clutch.
After testing, I found Auto Blip is always slower than Auto Clutch.
In some cars, some gear changes are typically made without a clutch.
Also seeIansDriverGuide page; New driver guide: Braking and Changing gear for new drivers. UPDATE 2015s4 from release notes:
The auto-blip shift aid now uses the new drivetrain physics model, instead of falling back to our ancient old drivetrain model.
This significantly improves how smoothly the cars shift when using the auto-blip aid.

Reminder: on the same page in iRacing options, map keys for looking left and right.
The "Animate Transition" shown in driver aids options apparently doesn't display unless the related keys are mapped (noticed this 2016s1).

2015s4: Allow H-pattern gearboxes to be downshifted into neutral at speed when using sequential shifting controls.

ABS related post by iRacing staff David T.
We model ABS in the same way, so what you feel is actually rotation at the wheel caused by the variation in grip of the tires as the ABS fires off.
Rumble strips actually feel really nice on a stronger wheel, like a CSWv2.
Wheels like a G27 just don't have the umph to play small details like rumble strips at the same time that they deal with the big details.
Other games artificially amplify the small details (rumble strips), sometimes by a whole lot, so that you can feel them on your G27, but that makes things feel bad when you get a wheel capable of handling everything.

BRAKE ADJUSTMENT in iRacing SIM

Using different types of pedal sets won't change your brake bias.
Different pedal sets are likely to change the brake force sent to the sim though.

When everyone has taken the checkered flag OR the cool-down timer expires, the race is officially over.
On-track incidents before official end of race will affect your Safety Rating.
The results page does not display information from the cool-down period after you have taken the flag.
If the race ends under caution: Don't pass the Pace Car nor any car on their regulation lap ahead of you.

Registering for Race sessions will place you into an Open Practice while waiting.
- For many series, if you register for a Race session more than a couple minutes prior to the session's scheduled start time, you will be automatically placed into an Open Practice session. This way you can get onto track, instead of waiting for the Race session to launch. Note that the splits for your Race session will not yet have been formed. So there's no guarantee that the other drivers you see in your Open Practice will be in your split. In fact, some of the drivers in the Open Practice might have registered for it directly, and won't be transferring to your Race session at all.
The simulation will notify you when your Race session is ready, and present a green [Race!] button on the Session screen. Clicking on this button will disconnect you from the Open Practice session, and connect you to your Race session. Only then can you tell with whom you have been grouped. If you do not click on the [Race!] button, the simulation will automatically switch you over to your Race session shortly prior to when you must grid your car for the race, or sooner if the Race session also has an embedded Qualify session.

The prior algorithm for forming splits for multi-class sessions attempted to ensure that as many splits as possible would be multi-class, down to some minimum number of drivers in each class within a split. This made for some not-so-great racing for drivers in classes where their split had this minimum number of drivers.

With this season's build, we have implemented a new split-forming algorithm for multi-class sessions that instead attempts to ensure that all car classes are packed relatively evenly into the higher-rated splits, potentially at the expense of the lower-rated splits being devoid of one or more car classes.

The algorithm for choosing the overall field size for each of the splits is unchanged - each of the higher-rated splits formed for a session will have the same overall number of teams, with the lower-rated splits potentially having one less team. Since the higher-rated splits might "consume" all the teams in one or more of the less-used car classes, and since the lower-rated splits will still have the same overall number of teams, the lower-rated splits could thus have more teams in each of their car classes than the higher-rated splits have in those same car classes.

We have added a new method by which sessions get split into run-groups. The earlier method typically chooses the "best" race server farm (US, Sydney, Amsterdam) based on the average ping time of all the registrants to the farms, and then splits the teams into run-groups based on iRating. The new method splits the teams into run-groups based on iRating, and then chooses the best farm for each run-group.

Additionally, the new method tries to avoid assigning the group onto a farm if any of the drivers in the group would generally prefer to avoid that farm. In practice this will mean that if anyone in the run group prefers the Sydney farm, and anyone else in the run-group prefers the Amsterdam farm, the run-group will be assigned to the US server farm.

Post by iRacing staff, DeWayne (02/2016)
"Assignment to a division is made based on your rating (iRating for race, and ttRating for time trial).
The range of rating points for each division are fixed. The lowest rating to get into divisions from 10 to 1 are as follows:
Race: 0, 500, 720, 927, 1130, 1278, 1440, 1713, 2283, 3500
Time Trial: 0, 950, 1120, 1203, 1244, 1278, 1314, 1358, 1483, 1800"
From same thread "The formula is the same for both road and oval"

Skip Barber at iRacing's Lime Rock page created including replays.
I use a similar style in the Skip as I did in the original MX5.
iRacing past updates broke my MX5 setups and made the car less enjoyable for me to drive.
Interesting to note real drivers were still not happy with the the realism of the car - forum thread 2014s2.
(Rookie series is fixed setup, ie. not adjustable).

This section is only very brief and somewhat obvious, many other resources go into great detail.
As I write this, I'm thinking back to Lime Rock Park in iRacing's MX5 Cup.
My best lap on record: 2012 s2 I set WR lap in practice 58.470.

At the time I was the fastest of 9138 drivers for the season in a practice session.
2015s4 with Dynamic Tracks introduced (& variable weather & a slight bug), they got whacky fast in the 57s.

Watch your replays and learn from your mistakes.

Use every inch of track to achieve a fast line.

Maintain car balance - sliding around can be fun but won't make you faster.
Weight transfer can assist with cornering; it can dump you off the track very fast too.

The MX5 is a momentum car... commonly referred to as Slow in. Fast out.
By entering corners too fast, you may need to brake harder, potentially reducing exit speed.

Smooth steering inputs - good driving techniques at slower speeds will ultimately make you faster.
If you need to keep working your wheel now, you are probably pushing too hard.
Slow down and re-evaluate; watch your replays to see where you are over-driving.

COAST. In some circumstances, it's beneficial to lift off the gas and coast without any pedal inputs.
Also remember that the accelerator is not an on-off switch, it requires varying amounts of pressure.At LRP in the MX5 while learning; I suggest coasting between most of T1 to T2. On approach to T5 (rh uphill section). T6 (rh bend).
At T5 uphill section. If car is not straight going over crest, liftoff to keep car on ground.
When cornering be aware that lifting off the gas too fast may induce lift-off oversteer.

Be predictable and hold your line.
If a faster driver is approaching, possibly lift off the gas slightly to assist with a safe pass.
Don't be 'helpful' by changing your line (getting out of the way) at the last moment.
Chances are you will jump into their planned path around you.

Learn and practice different race-lines. Learn to drive inside and outside lines.
Under race conditions you need to be able to master every inch of track.
I personally take this to an extreme by learning car control on grass too.
By doing so I'm more likely to regain control and get back on the track.
(A solo "Test" session is the appropriate place to drive on grass).

* I suggest starting your iRacing experience with a TEST session
An extremely brief overview for want of a better one - any offers please?

A TEST SESSION:
A good place to start.
Only you are on the track, do as you please..

A PRACTICE SESSION:
Official practice sessions together with other members.
(Incidents may be reported, serious offenders may be banned from the service).
Your "Safety Rating" and "iRating" are not affected by a Practice Session.
Some members in practice sessions are very helpful - ask for help.
To type a message in sim, push T on keyboard to get cursor in chat box.
(Messages in sim are limited by character count).

OTHER SESSIONS:
Official Race and Qualify sessions affect your ratings.
Hosted (private) sessions don't affect your ratings.
The iRacing docs on Members' site go into detail.
An old thread "Introduction to the SR System".
Another old thread "Guide to play the points game".
Time Trials (ttrating) - explained in iRacing's FAQ.

PROTESTS:
In essence, anyone in or spectating your session may file a protest against you.
In addition to iRacing's official sessions, iRacing's Chief Steward's post in reply to a member explains further:
"we do not police league events. We advised you to take the issue to your league admin.
If you are the league admin, it is your prerogative to remove the person from your league. We do police non pass-worded hosted sessions that are not labelled demo derbies."
The File Protest link in under the Help tab on the members page.
There is much to be argued about the Protest system, I'll only make brief comment:
1. Watch a replay of the incident before getting heated and over-reacting.
2. Many on the forum will wrongly claim protesting is a waste of time.
3. Save a copy of the replay (explained on this page) which you'll need for protesting.

Helpful forum threads:

John Bodin's forum post links to old and new information.
Easy link to tell others: edracing.com/bodin (redirects to iRacing forum).